Seattle developer with Eugene on its radar eyes large apartment complex near Willamette River

Elon Glucklich @EGlucklich

Tuesday

Apr 24, 2018 at 12:01 AMMay 1, 2018 at 7:43 PM

A Seattle firm bullish on Eugene's housing market wants to build a 94-unit apartment complex between River Road and the Willamette River.

Evergreen Housing Development Group has filed preliminary planning documents with the city of Eugene to build on a vacant 3.6-acre lot east of River Road and extending to the Willamette River bike path near Maurie Jacobs Park.

But any construction is likely more than a year out, said Andrew Brand, Evergreen Housing's executive director of development.

“The earliest it would be that we would potentially start construction is summer 2019,” Brand said.

Lane County's public housing agency, Homes for Good, has owned the land since the late 1990s, county property records show. But the agency has a tentative agreement in place to sell the land to Evergreen, Homes for Good Executive Director Jacob Fox said.

The agency would use proceeds from the land sale to invest in low-income housing projects elsewhere in the county.

Evergreen's filings call the project Lombard Apartments.

The eastern part of the property lies in the Willamette River Greenway. Building in the greenway requires a special permit, and developers must take steps to remedy any impacts from a project on soil, native plant and wildlife.

The firm has been one of the more active out-of-area investors in Eugene's multifamily market in recent years.

Evergreen is working to develop 360 apartment units on part of the RiverRidge Golf Complex in north Eugene. In late 2016, the firm bought the 300-unit Heron Meadows Apartments in west Eugene for $40 million. It also owns the 232-unit Redwood Park Apartments in the Churchill area of southwest Eugene.